For the Love of Curry

May 30, 2012

One of the neat things about the addition of random middle of week posts on the blog is I can occasionally talk about silly things that would not normally warrant a full post. I can also post things here as the blog equivalent of a sticky post just so I can link to this instead of repeatedly explaining myself.

I will state this here: My favorite Tsukihime character is Ciel. I know to some people this is incomprehensible because:

But it is the truth. So I decided to write a little explanation of this phenomenon so I don’t have repeat my reasoning every 6 months.

We decided very early in the development of the blog that Reverse Thieves should have some sort of theme. It did not have to be the be all and end all of the website but we needed something that tied the blog together that would make things stronger. For better or for worse we did not go with mecha and chose a detective theme instead. That meant we would both pick detective themed avatars for the blog. Kate obviously went with Narutaki but I decided to be a bit cheeky and picked the Brainwasher Detective. Brainwasher Detective is his gag persona that started as a meme but quickly became an official joke when Type-Moon decided to run with it. It seemed like a cute idea at the time. It let me display my love of Type-Moon while staying within the theme. I named myself HisuiRT on Twitter mostly to match Narutaki’s naming scheme and because BrainwasherDetectiveRT seemed unnecessarily long. If I had a choice of any Type-Moon character I clearly would have gone with the insanely obvious choice. Bu there is no Salvation Fuzz version of Ciel or King of Detectives Arturia for to me to use so I went with what I had. But despite her odd unpopularity I always preferred Ciel over all the other heroines of Tsukihime.

While I love Hisui I always thought the most fascinating character in Tsukihime was Ciel. While everyone has face the present to the world and the true self in Tsukihime I though that Ciel’s was the most interesting contrast between the “role” and the “actor.” The interplay between the cover identity of “Ciel the kind sempai” and the ruthless “Yumi of the Burial Agency” and how they slowly intermingle was one of the most complex characters arcs in the game. I thought that both roles that she played were quite strong and how she balances them made her a character that was fun to watch.

I also enjoyed that we was the most mature of the five heroines. She was the second oldest of the five but distinctly the most experienced. Arcueid is ancient but spends most of her time sleeping in wait for her next assignment giving her a surprisingly naive world view. I have always enjoyed Ciel’s restrained but aggressive manner. It has a polite self-confidence that is intoxicating.

I will admit on a shallow level I also find her rather physically attractive. She has a some rather generous proportions without ever going into the range of gratuitous. Her glasses also are a cute charm point that help round out her character. Plus those tattoos are rather eye-catching. They give her an appropriately Revi-like danger while having a cool arcane flair.

Can we all just agree that Seventh Holy Scripture is an amazingly sexy weapon? It is a modified pile bunker that prevents anyone it kills from regenerating or reincarnating. She looks so fierce wielding it and it has the prefect table top RPG power. Her fighting style beyond her trump card is also fairly cool. She generally has a spry fighting style relies on skill and speed. I always enjoy characters like that. They usually have to fight smarter. While they are hardly effective against insanely overpowered characters the Black Keys are a fun weapon. Sadly we never get to see her throw around any spells despite how much raw casting ability she has. I am sure if the ever get around to making a Tsukihime 2 that will be more prominent.

She also seems to have a small following of professional artist as well. Eri Takenashi’s preference for putting Ciel in Take Moon stories seems fairly clear to me. Ryukishi07 liked her enough to throw in Rumiko Chie as a tribute to Ciel in Higurashi. I don’t see any Arcueid tribute characters.

Plus the woman loves curry. That is just a sign of good taste. If you don’t like curry I am not sure we can be friends.

So there you have it. I have explained a minor quirk of my character, explained a bit of the birth of the blog, and stood up for another unpopular Type-Moon heroine. I hope that clears up some confusion.

For some reason I cannot put my finger on Ciel is also just as unpopular. All in all fans talk quite a bit less about Tsukihime so it is a bit harder to determine why they don’t like Ciel. But hating on Ciel has almost gotten to the point of being a meme. (Maybe it has?)

Akiha is my favorite Tsukihime heroine, but Ciel always fascinated me in a way unlike the other characters. Her tragic past seems a little more relatable than the others’, because she really was just a normal girl who was unfortunately selected and cursed randomly to immortality. I enjoy seeing her pull off her moves in Melty Blood, as a human among monsters, and I’d love to see an action focused Tsukihime prequel that tells her story during her years as an Executioner before she met Shiki. Was her transformation into hardened cynic immediate, or did she suffer through more adventures?

Sakura is great. Ciel..well I can certainly see where you’re coming from, but I found her behavior (falling in love at all, much less so early in the story, among other things; it was what reinforced the idea I’d always had of Shiki being unnaturally attractive, even more so than your usual harem lead) to be inconsistent with what I’d expect from an experienced, immortal, top-level assassin. It’s shallow reasoning on my part, I know. I have to replay Tsukihime to reinforce it or to throw it away though.

I saw Ciel more of a “No time for love Dr. Jones” character who might have been a romantic if she was not utterly obsessed with killing Rao. It just so happens that love ran into her on a mission. But it is just one of those things that really depends on how you read things.

I wonder how much Shiki having the “Tohno Gland” partially has to do with Takeuchi’s instances about what sells in Visual Novels. The more I read interviews the more I realize how influential he was on the sexy parts of Tsukihime.

Ciel wears loose clothing, though, so she loses out to Arc’s sweater puppies that are always on display. And all the Tsukihime heroines wear relatively long skirts, so the hips don’t get accentuated much.